Dark Shadows Diary, Episode 49

Episode 49: "Dragnet"
Sept. 1, 1966

Yay, Maggie's back! Shit's been getting depressing around Collinsport lately, so Little Miss Sunshine is a welcome sight. She can turn the world on with her smile and is especially exuberant in the first scene, which has her brightening up a moment that involves troubled manly men Burke Devlin and Joe Haskell at the Collinsport Inn diner. Burke orders orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee, in case you were wondering.

Everybody's been looking for Bill Malloy, who hasn't been seen since calling a meeting to discuss the DUI incident that sent Burke to prison ten years earlier. Naturally, Burke's looking for him because Malloy could expedite his plan to harm Roger Collins grievously beyond immediate recognition. Future "World's Cutest Couple" candidates Joe and Maggie want to find Malloy out of compassion.

Carolyn (and a boom mic) interrupt the proceedings, complaining there's something wrong with her car's carburetor and that it "will take about an hour" to fix. I suspect there's nothing too wrong with her carburetor if it's only going to take an hour to fix, but maybe the Suckers Collins family supports the town in more ways than one.

Burke goes looking for Sam, who expresses his own variation on the theme of "I haven't seen Bill Malloy." Burke's getting increasingly frustrated by the town's (almost willful) ignorance. People keep making excuses for Malloy, insisting the man might have taken an unexpected trip without requesting any vacation AND leaving his car parked in front of his house. Constable Carter will probably get to the bottom of things once he finishes lunch.

Joe tells Carolyn that David revealed more than just Malloy's fate. In addition to predicting Malloy's untimely demise, he revealed Carolyn would someday marry Burke. "I don't think I like the idea of a crystal ball deciding my future," Carolyn says, totally missing the point.

Sam slips up a few times with Burke, mostly because he's a bit shifty and always looks guilty no matter the circumstance, and refers to Malloy in the past tense ... which pisses off Burke. Sam doesn't do much better with Maggie, who runs home to check on her pop now that it looks like he's embroiled in a possible murder. He can't bully Burke, but he makes a solid effort to push his daughter around. When that doesn't work, he takes to ignoring her. He punctuates his allholery when she leaves by, once again, wrecking his portrait of Burke, this time by slinging paint on it.